Since frying candy is so popular these days, I decided to strike out on my own and fry a Reese’s Cup. It was my birthday weekend, and a fish-fry with friends provided the perfect opportunity to batter and cook candy. Despite working without a recipe (I didn’t feel like putting in the effort) and never having fried candy before, I was confident. How could someone possibly mess up fried candy? Talk about famous last words.

Any of the bad choices of the many I made that day could have spelled disaster on their own, but in combination, produced the nastiest concoction I’ve ever cooked.

My mistakes, somewhat in order: battering the Reese’s Cup with cornmeal, flour, and Zatarain’s Seasoned Fish-Fri; using a shish-ka-bob-sized skewer; plopping the battered candy in canola oil that had already fried 37 fish; and, finally, tasting the stinking mess.

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Everything tastes better home-made, right? This is true of almost everything, but it is especially true when it comes to treats. Cookies straight out of the oven are infinitely more pleasing than the ones straight out of the factory. Foodie website chow.com understands this concept perfectly, and they’ve put together a small collection of recipes which take the standard chocolate candy bar to higher levels.

The article suggests that you should give the store-bought stuff to the kids in costumes and make these fancy takes on classic treats for yourself. After all, most children are taught to avoid eating handmade treats anyway, but these bars sound perfect to serve at a Halloween party. CHOW even offers wrapper templates that you can print out for each bar, which is a nice touch.

The simplest recipe they have is for the peanut butter cup, which requires a mini-muffin tin to help form those delectably deep shapes and suggests mixing in graham cracker crumbs with the peanut butter filling to create that wonderfully crisp texture. For the really adventurous, there’s the DIY take on the Snickers bar, Snickles. That recipe includes mixing your own nougat filling and caramel. Of course, any DIY project takes a lot of time and effort, but the rewards (including a whopping 24 servings of each bar!) make it all worthwhile.

• Make your own Halloween Candy Bars

chocolate, candy bar, reeses, twix, peanut butter cups, snickers, diy, recipes

Nothing screams autumn like a steaming cup of sweet, spicy cider on a crisp, chilly evening. Luckily for Candy Addicts, there’s a way for you to get both a cider fix and a candy fix at the same time with Red Hots cider. You don’t even need to measure anything.

Photo by djking

Here’s how you do it:

Pour a jug of store-bought apple cider into a crock pot. Add a bag of Red Hots (a big bag if you’re craving something extra sweet and spicy, or a smaller amount if you want something more mellow). Let it heat slowly throughout the day, stirring occasionally to help the candies dissolve into the juice. This has the awesome side effect of filling your entire home with the cinnamon-infused scent of Red Hots – it’s better than any candle!

If you’re feeling adventurous, expand the recipe by tossing in some of your favorite cider additives, like sliced oranges, cinnamon sticks and cloves – get as creative as you’d like. And if you’re a Candy Addict who’s of age, spike it with the rum of your choice.

There’s no better way to cap off a chill autumn evening!

• The Official Red Hots Website

Buy Red Hots online:

• at Candy Crate
• at Old Time Candy
• at Amazon.com
• in bulk at CandyDirect.Com

red hots, drink, recipe, cinnamon

How do you know when a candy has reached the height of popularity? Sales, marketing, limited edition versions and the “test of time” are all good ways to tell, but you know you have a real winner when devoted fans start incorporating the candy flavors at home. That’s exactly what Joe over at “Culinary in the Country” did when he made some delicious looking Snickers Fudge.

The recipe looks difficult, but it isn’t as involved as it first seems. The only catch is that it’s takes a long time to make since you create four different layers that need to individually set. Joe is a Snickers connoisseur and says the recipe accurately captures the flavors of the beloved candy bar. Be sure to visit Joe’s blog for the recipe. This is homemade candy making at it’s best!

• Snickers Fudge Recipe at “Culinary in the Country”

candy, sweets, chocolate, recipe, recipes, Snickers, peanuts

Baked goods combined with candy is an idea so good your head will practically explode just thinking about it! That’s what my head nearly did when I first read about Santa’s Surprise Cookies–peanut butter cookies stuffed with, surprise! A mini Snickers.

Though I love classic peanut butter cookies, I have to say they can tend to be a little on the crumbly and dry side (you know, enough that you definitely want to have a glass of milk or mug of coffee nearby). What the mini Snickers surprise offers, however, is the chewiness factor that the basic peanut butter cookie so often lacks. It thus creates, dare I say it, a near-perfect peanut butter cookie! If you want, you can jazz the cookie up even more by adding some dark chocolate chips in the center. (I opted to do this in lieu of the chocolate drizzle the recipe calls for. That just seemed like extra work!)

• Santa’s Surprise cookie recipe

sweets, recipe, recipes, candy, snickers, cookies, peanut butter